


Striding Through The Darkness

by Krasimer



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Labyrinth Fusion, And ends up in the Don't Starve world, And maybe not at all?, HONEY NO, He goes to save her, I don't know if people like reading my work anymore, I just feel like I should have posted it earlier, M/M, Reality is not what it seems, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Willow is his sister, Wilson needs to not be doing this, it's not bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-17 00:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14821590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: Around them, ghostly figures moved in their own dances. Some of them were like him, it seemed – half-asleep, as in a dream – while some of them were awake and aware. The aware ones were smiling, almost cruel, as they watched their partners.Wilson took a deep breath, turning back to his dance partner. His partner leaned down to put his lips against Wilson’s ear, whispering to him. His voice was pleasant, deep, and almost song-like as he spoke, and his breath whispered over Wilson’s cheek.(He should have known better than to not listen to the local legends.)





	Striding Through The Darkness

He was dancing.

His feet moved beneath him, in time with the man who held him close, and Wilson tried to clear his head enough to remember why they were dancing in the first place. When he looked up, he caught a glimpse of a hooked nose, full lips, and a pair of glasses perched on a face. The eyes were impossible to see behind the lenses, the glint of light making him dizzy as he tried to focus.

All he knew was that they were dancing, moving in time with each other, and the man’s hands were nearly burning where they held him.

Around them, ghostly figures moved in their own dances. Some of them were like him, it seemed – half-asleep, as in a dream – while some of them were awake and aware. The aware ones were smiling, almost cruel, as they watched their partners.

Wilson took a deep breath, turning back to his dance partner. His partner leaned down to put his lips against Wilson’s ear, whispering to him. His voice was pleasant, deep, and almost song-like as he spoke, and his breath whispered over Wilson’s cheek.

“As the world falls down.”

The clock on the steps chimed the hour.

 

X

 

“You don’t have to watch over me all the time!” Willow’s voice rang throughout the house as she stomped up the steps. “I’m not a little kid anymore, our parents died ages ago!”

“I watch over you because I care about you!” Wilson shouted back.

“You’re not our parents, it’s not your goddamned job!”

“You can be so stubborn, sometimes!” he clenched his hands uselessly in the air, groaning in frustration as he heard her door slam. “Do you _want_ someone to snatch you off the street or something?”

“I wish someone _would_ take me away!” Willow threw something across her room, he could hear it when it landed against the wall and thudded to the floor. Probably a book, one of her hardbound ones. “Then I wouldn’t have to deal with _you!”_

“Oh, yes, fine!” Wilson rolled his eyes and stomped to the bottom of the staircase. “I wish someone would take you away, too!” he could feel his temper rising, knew that he would say something he would regret. “Maybe the Shadow King will take you away with him! You’ve done the research on him enough, you know the local legends! Is that why you were in the woods today?”

“It’d be better than living with you!” Her door slammed open again and Willow stormed out of her room. “I wish the Shadow King would take me away, _right now!”_

With that said, she stomped back into her room, slamming the door shut again.

Wilson sighed and pressed his face into his hands, taking a couple of deep breaths and letting them out slowly. There. Regret had arrived. It washed over him like a tide, tugging mercilessly at him until he cringed at the memory of what he’d just said to his little sister.

Unseen by him, the shadows around the stairs warped and shifted before lying still again.

When he uncovered his face, Wilson huffed out a small breath and went up the stairs, waiting outside his sister’s door. “Willow?” he said quietly.

She didn’t answer him.

“Willow, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed so much. I just…” he shook his head. “I just want you safe, Willow.”

She still didn’t answer him.

Wilson leaned back from the door, narrowing his eyes at it. Something was wrong. Even when she was furious with him, she still answered. They were alike in many ways, including both of them only needing a few minutes to calm down after a fight. Willow never stayed silent when he came to apologize, not even at their worst.

“Willow?”

He tried the handle of her door, finding it unlocked.

Actually, he realized as he turned it, the door handle was broken. It came off in his hand, the insides of the lock mechanism turned into dust. “Willow?” he asked again, fear suddenly ripping at his heart. “Willow, if you’re in there, please answer me.”

The door opened easily when he pushed against it.

Wilson shoved his way into the room, finding it completely empty of his little sister. Seemingly in her place, he found a radio on the floor.

He dropped to his knees in front of it, staring at it in shock.

He and Willow had done the research the same, both of them reading the legends of the Shadow King. Finding the bits and pieces that the locals tried to hide – in the early parts of the 20th century, some people in town had gone missing and all that had been left behind had been an antique radio. The Shadow King had, the legends said, been banished from the town when people had been made to forget about him.

Taking a chance, Wilson addressed the radio. “Where is Willow?”

It remained silent.

“Where is my little sister?”

The radio crackled at him, static hissing as if it had just been turned on without being properly tuned. “Your little sister,” a voice wavered through the static. “Is with me.”

“…I want her back,” Wilson clenched his hands into fists on his knees. “You will give her _back_.”

“Or what?” the voice seemed to be enjoying his anger, if the smug tone to it was any indication. “What would you, a simple _human_ , do to me?” a cackling laugh that could have once sounded pleasant rang out, static crackling through it. “Pal, I am your worst nightmares and the darkest parts of humanity strung together. There is nothing you can _do_.”

“I am coming to get my sister,” Wilson felt his jaw clench after he said it, his brow furrowing angrily. “I don’t care what you put in my way – an army, a labyrinth, a world of darkness and starvation and hatred. I am getting my little sister _back_ from you.”

The radio laughed.

The sound seemed to get louder and louder and Wilson’s eyes went wide as two shadowed hands burst through the ground and clenched tightly around him.

As they dragged him away, he lost consciousness.

 

X

 

Someone was singing, off in the distance.

 

X

 

When he woke up, Wilson sat up slowly, rubbing at a sore spot on his head.

It felt like he had been dragged through hell and back, his entire body in pain as he tried to catalogue the worst of it. His elbow, the right one, felt like he’d slammed his funny bone into something at high speeds. His knee shook when he tried to stand.

“Well, well, well,” a voice sounded from somewhere above him.

Wilson jolted, looking up quickly to see who it was. The voice was familiar, he had just been threatening it after all. “What did you do with her?” he demanded.

“Your sister will have to stay here forever if you aren’t careful,” the man smirked. He wore a dark suit, his eyes a matching black, and he held a smoking cigar between his fingers. Above his head, almost like an afterimage, was a floating black crown. He was tall, taller than anyone Wilson had seen before.

He had to be Maxwell.

Calling him the King of Shadows had been nothing more than a silly thought until just now. A child’s game, a way of poking fun at the darkness and pretending to be invincible.

Maxwell gestured out beyond where they were standing, a smirk on his face. “You have three days,” he started. “Tradition dictates thirteen hours, but I suppose it is somewhat more difficult when a world is as big as mine. Three days before your sister becomes one of my Shades,” he raised a hand, a small clock-looking thing appearing in his hands.

He dropped it into Wilson’s hands, pressing the pad of his thumb against his bottom lip. “Such a stupidly brave man,” he hissed the words out. Wilson shivered, hands clasping around the device as he tried to make himself lean away from Maxwell’s grip, the oddly intimate rush of his breath against Wilson’s face. “I can be fair when I want to be,” he pulled away. “And as cruel as I want.”

“And you will never play fair,” Wilson took a deep, steadying breath and nodded. He got back to his feet.

“You’ve read the legends, you’ve investigated the science behind it all,” Maxwell’s laughter was mocking as he was surrounded by shadows. “Solve it all you like.”

With a gesture of his hand, he was gone.

 

X

 

He could almost hear his sister’s voice.

 

X

 

The swamp was full of darkness and dangers, spike-bearing tentacles and vicious monsters that wanted nothing more than Wilson’s death. There was a nightmare given life, darkness with eyes and teeth, and Wilson had a nasty realization that whatever it was, Willow would likely be made into a matching one.

He only had a day left to find his sister.

 

X

 

Two days, twenty-three hours, fifty minutes, a dizzying ball and a rush of emotions later, Wilson just about had to admit defeat.

Willow could not be found, not in the world he was in. Not even on the other side of the gate he had found in the middle of the woods. He settled down on a boulder, weeping for a minute, and Maxwell showed up.

“Have you given up so easily?” the tall being taunted him.

“I cannot find her, not here nor anywhere else,” Wilson looked up at him, knowing he was the very picture of a beaten man. “Please, I…She is my only family left, I have no one else.”

“Do you know how many pleas for mercy I have heard?”

Wilson winced, closing his eyes. Hopeless, then.

Something occurred to him, a stupidly brilliant idea that just might work. “Take me in her place.”

“…What?”

“You are going to turn her into a Shade,” Wilson looked up to meet Maxwell’s eyes, struggling to keep meeting that burning gaze. “Tear out her humanity and destroy all that she is. Take me in her place. Send her _home_ , you only need one of us. You are right, I do know the legends and the science behind so much of what you are. I know you only need one person sacrificed to you in some way.”

“You would have me take you in her place?” Maxwell raised an eyebrow. “You would destroy yourself for your sister?”

“Yes,” Wilson sat a little straighter. “She is all I have.”

Around them, the world began to fade.

“You would let yourself become nothing more than a shadow, a Shade, a living darkness meant only for chaos and death?” Maxwell studied him, some of his usual disdain gone. “With your only condition being that your sister is kept safe?”

“Yes!” Wilson leapt to his feet. “Yes, damn you! My sister is all that I have left in this world, the only family I still have, I will not let her come to harm if I may prevent it!”

For the first time, Maxwell actually smiled at him.

The taller man leaned in, his hand on Wilson’s cheek as he pressed close. “You do not know every legend, it seems,” he whispered. It was all the warning that Wilson got before Maxwell’s lips were against his, a dry pressure that seemed to tug at the very center of him.

Wilson blacked out.

 

When he woke up, he was on his bed, his hands clasped together over his stomach.

For a moment, he was confused.

Where had he been?

“…Willow?” he called out, sitting up and standing. His legs quivered underneath him for a moment, unsteady for a fraction of a second, but he soon regained his bearings. The house was oddly quiet.

When he got out of his bedroom, however, he could hear her in her room. “Willow?”

She stuck her head out. “Yeah?”

“…Is everything alright?”

Willow blinked at him for a moment and Wilson felt extraordinarily silly for having asked. “Why wouldn’t it be?” she asked in return. “You’re acting weirder than usual.”

“I suppose I am,” Wilson allowed, shrugging.

It must have only been a dream, he decided. A collection of thoughts and images, nothing more and nothing less.

 

On the wall behind him, his shadow morphed and stretched, then settled back into the usual shape.

**Author's Note:**

> ??????
> 
> Does anyone even read my work anymore? The amount of comments I get is going down, as are the number of hits. 
> 
> Anyway, hope whoever reads this likes it.


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